WIPO’s GII for my breakfast: This year’s serving is on 16 Sept.

Feedback is the Breakfast of Champions is a popular phrase attributed to the author Ken Blanchard. His succinct writings using One Minute themes have a global following. The Deming cycle PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Action) has embedded the feedback loop into the top management governance cycle and is a gold standard in management practices. Our PDCA is more akin to Politics-Diatribe-Constituency-Attrition in practice. However, in our nation’s planning, feedback is not exactly visible. Our breakfast of short eats or loads of carbs with some sambol and curry has led to more NCD prevalence than progress. 

Hmm, sambol, I think is good, it is pyramid shaped and in volume, the carb portion I mean as the issue! Well, this is an ordinary citizen’s perception! When we experience the same issue resurfacing year after year, one accident after another, the same excuse over and over again, you definitely would be excused for sensing dejavu. We do not see any knowledge absorption by the decision makers in making decisions. A simple yet powerful concept of knowledge absorption is related to innovation readiness. If there is no national readiness in this direction, one can say Goodbye to any progress! ‘Hello IMF, what do you want us to do now?’ would be the forever mantra! Why an innovation mindset for growth? Current and forever thinking had been doing the same things ... even if millions of tourists arrive, the growth is going to be linear at best. Innovation fuels exponential growth, and that is why this specific mindset is important than the current prevailing one.

Global Innovation Index 2025

I am writing this early to get more attention to a report card coming our way next week. The Global Innovation Index for the year 2025 will be launched on 16 September from Geneva by the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization). As per the newsfeed coming from WIPO, this year’s report card will be a comparison of 140 economies. The objective of GII is positioning and ranking national economies over their innovation prowess. The underlying understanding in moving to an exercise of this nature is understanding the value of innovation in transforming an economy makes it an imperative to understand and study how economies execute policies and practices innovation based and led. The exercise addresses inputs and outputs and critiques on efficiency. The methodology is via evaluating a data metric of about 80 indicators under 7 pillars and then calculating a composite value which yields a ranking. 

The report card for Sri Lanka last year is presented while we wait for this year’s news. Have we or do we take these published measures seriously and decisions taken after studying the series of reports cards available since 2007? The positioning of Sri Lanka over the years, when observed, demonstrate a saw tooth pattern of little or no order and a global position of no significance! This pattern is an indication of feedback absent eco system performance. Compare how India has performed if you want to see a different nation at work. 

Obama’s White House considered innovation as the key ingredient that was sought from everyone when trying to rally round the economy in 2008. The message from the White House was direct to all individuals. In India, the first citizen downwards gives GII their highest attention, and the curve for India in the GII is indicative of the feedback effect. As we have not exactly understood the growth correlation with science and technology, nor the critical importance of innovation in ensuring a turnaround for the economy, we hardly hear the term used.

Spotty report sheet

As over a hundred economies get ranked, we can digest 100 report cards. It is immediately obvious that those countries at the top have data available for all fields. As the ranking goes down, you see different symbols in front of specific parameters. Two prominent symbols stand for data either not available or outdated data. This is what hits you when you scan our report card. The 2024 data sheet for Sri Lanka had 11 missing data and 22 outdated data. It would be of interest to understand the effect of all data being present and available in the first instance. You will be making decisions based on current data – data driven, evidence-based decision making, as we usually say, is as what is best. The present position cannot deliver much in the desired manner is obvious. Year after year, we have been given this spotty report sheet. 

Obviously, these reports have not served as feedback. If you walk into a usual public sector progress review meeting immediately it becomes obvious that this type of scenarios is never part of the discussion. The most important data point is the percentage of expenditure out of the allocated funds, and then you seek promises over whether how soon the rest of the balance money is going to be spent! That is, it, and the progress review is over till we meet again with another set of expenditure figures, usually not much different from the last time. The procurement process has never been developed with a goal focused mindset, but with a process assurance concept. This scenario also gives a field time for the audits who also take up the same question but in a different way. Why did you tie up the money in your institution and cause so many issues to the central government due to opportunity cost? This is the reason – the unimaginative mindset – which is of course antithesis to an innovative mindset that is keeping phosphate in the same way and in position since its identification in 1973! A whole lot more, too, can be attributed, but I will stop with that, as the latest I heard was phosphate fertiliser manufacturing happening in three months!

Make use of data sets

We must make use of these data sets for decision making, as it is a free offering coming with much analysis. The distorted saw tooth curve is the most likely in the absence of any care. If I want to do something about the poor positioning and decide with the thinking enough is enough, let’s pledge to place the country at the 75th position and then 60th two years later on we immediately have the gap filling we must achieve from the report cards of those who are in these positions currently. 

You need to understand that if you are in a position below the 50th position, you will not be taken seriously, and if you are below the 100th position, you will not even be allocated a page to publish your report card. Now that too is a feedback of sort… You know where you are and what the world thinks of you. No number of juicy adjectives internally using your mother tongue, will do to change the global perspective! GII measures what you’re doing with inputs and outputs alongside the system, and the ranking and reporting inform you and the rest of the world. Any progressive leader should take steps to be cognisant of this type of analytics and attach value. 

Ahead of the launch on the 16th, WIPO has already launched its identification of innovation clusters. These are really innovation hotspots and are significant contributors to an economy. The top position this year has been given to the Shenzhen area. TRACE Expert City is the closest to an innovation hot spot that we have as a geographic entity, and twinnery of MAS is probably the best firm level example. As we lack systematic communication, these entities do not get registered as associated with Sri Lanka. It is interesting to see that Shenzhen in China started more or less at the same time as Katunayake in Sri Lanka. Creating clusters is certainly a way forward in jump-starting an economy with innovation.

Tons of insights possible

Some may say, pointing to the Ease of Doing Business, that there may be dangers of manipulated biases contained within, leading us astray. An innovation mindset is not accepting all that is offered without analysis and that process too would be of value. Yes, Ease of Doing Business disappeared for a while when this aspect surfaced. Sri Lanka, of course, have had meetings with regular frequency in trying to realise a decent standing in this index. Many more benefits are possible if we take a broader index such as GII for guidance. The analysis in GII, which is over 7 pillars, considers institution, human capital and research, infrastructure, market sophistication, business sophistication, knowledge and technology outputs, and creative output. Tons of insights are possible as GII crosses all elements of the economy, unlike the Ease of Doing Business.

We have no choice over what will come out on 16th. Our presence gets automatically measured and communicated. Those who are interested in decent investments abroad do note this analysis. The choice we have been responsive to the offering, and that is why the call to have your breakfast, ensuring the right stuff for the right results! Prof. Soumitra Datta (founder and co-author of GII) at the launch of the GII 2021 (an interesting and eventful year) said: “Innovation is important not just because of economic reasons but to give hope to young people and a path to realise their dreams.” Food for thought and get ready for breakfast on the 16th.